Accelerometers Were Installed Backwards... By Design

What happens when you follow the instructions... but the instructions are wrong? Well, if you're an engineer on NASA's Genesis probe... you watch as your pride and joy successfully completes its trek to the sun and back, only to then make a big SPLAT in the Utah desert.

Investigators with the agency confirmed this week what NASA had speculated almost from the moment Genesis slammed into the Great Salt Lake in September 2004: subcontractor Lockheed Martin inverted two accelerometers that were supposed to trigger parachute deployment.

What's worse, however, is that technicians followed the design parameters to the letter... but the design ITSELF was wrong.

Investigators also found that Lockheed Martin skipped a pre-launch test, due to time constraints. That oversight -- which investigators linked to the "Faster, Better, Cheaper" management philosophy of former NASA director Dan Goldin -- prevented a test that would have uncovered the fatal flaw from being performed.

There are a few positives that came from Genesis, however. For one, despite scientists' worst fears, some of the solar wind particle samples Genesis collected actually survived the 100-mile-an-hour collision with terra firma.

And, perhaps even more importantly... scientists got it right with Genesis' sister probe, Stardust, which returned to earth successfully last January.

FMI: www.nasa.gov